Deposition

c. 1800-1805

Antonio d’Este (Italian, 1754–1837)
After a model by Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757–1822)

Antonio d’Este was a contemporary and follower of Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. From 1799 he collaborated on Canova’s works and directed his large studio in Rome. The Deposition was based on a plaster model by Canova, dated 1800, as well as a painting of the same subject Canova made for the church he erected in his native village of Possagno, in northern Italy, one year earlier. The marble version was carved by Este shortly thereafter as a private commission. Both the religious theme and the emotive nature of its presentation show that this relief was less indebted to the Classical tradition than to Florentine Renaissance sculpture.

Status: On View, Gallery 218
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Antonio D'Este
Title: Deposition
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1800–1837
Medium: Marble
Dimensions: 86 × 80 cm (33 7/8 × 31 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Bequest of Bertha C. Loomis
Reference Number: 1966.130
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/25221/manifest.json

Gypsotheca canoviana eretta in Possagno da Mons. Giambatista Sartori Canova, vescovo di Mindi (Bassano, Italy, n.d.), p. 4, no. 6.
Catalogo cronologico delle sculture di Antonio Canova pubblicato dietro richiesta di S.A.R. il Principe di Baviera (Rome, 1800), p. 9.
Melchior Missirini, Della vita di Antonio Canova (Prato, Italy, 1824), p. 108.
J. S. Memes, Memoirs of Antonio Canova, with a Critical Analysis of his Works and an Historical Overview of Modern Sculpture (Edinburgh, 1825), p. 573.
Alfred Gottlieb Meyer, Künstler-Monographien, Vol. 39 Canova (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 42, 98–99.
Elena Bassi, Canova (Rome, 1943), p. 23.
Elena Bassi, La Gipsoteca di Possagno: sculture e dipinti di Antonio Canova (Venice, 1957), p. 150, no. 143.
Giuseppe Pavanello, L’opera completa del Canova (Milan, 1976), p. 104, no. 115.
Guiseppe Pavanello, “Antonio d’este, amico Canova, scultore,” Antologia di belle arti 1, 35–38 (1990), pp. 20–22, no. 36.
Paolo Mariuz, “D’ESTE, Antonio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 39 (Rome, 1991), p. 427.
Hugh Honour, ed., Edizione Nazionale di Antonio Canova: Scritti 1 (Rome, 1994), pp. 311, 402, 410, 427.
Paolo Mariuz, ed., Antonio d’Este, Memorie di Antonio Canova, reprint (Padua, 1999), pp. xv, n. 15, 317, 373.
Lelia Packer and Jennifer Sliwka. Monochrome: Painting in Black and White, exh. cat. (London: National Gallery Company Limited/ Yale University Press, 2017), p. 131, 132, cat. 39, 133.

Art Institute of Chicago, “Canova and France,” 15 January - 20 February 1985 [no cat.].
London, The National Gallery, Monochrome: Painting in Black and White, Oct. 30, 2017-Feb. 18, 2018, cat. 39 (ill.); Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast, Black & White: Von Dürer bis Elíasson, Mar. 25- July 15, 2018.
Washington, DC, Canova: Sketching in Clay, June 11–Oct. 9, 2023, not in cat. ; Art Institue of Chicago, Nov. 19, 2023 - Mar. 18, 2024 [Chicago only].

Gesso modello completed by Antonio Canova, 1800; the subject was reworked in marble by Antonio d’Este for Count Antonio Widman (Widmann or Widmanio), Venice, after 1800. Galerie Sangiorgi, Rome [see photograph with gallery information in curatorial file]. Ferdinand Nagler, Vienna, by 1936 [copy of receipt in curatorial file]; sold to Bertha C. Loomis, Chicago, 1936 [see source cited above]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1966.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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